From A Republican, And A Democrat... The System Is Broken... In Their Own Words...

[WillyT]

A Midwest Republican Senator Crusades Against the Corruption of Money in Politics
Carl Gibson - HuffPo
Posted: 02/11/2014 1:57 pm EST Updated: 02/11/2014 1:59 pm EST

<snip>

Dale Schultz, a Republican state senator from Richland Center, Wis., has held his seat for 23 years, and served in the state assembly for 10 years before that. He's stood for election 12 times. He was also the only Republican in the Senate to vote against Act 10, the infamous 2011 Wisconsin bill championed by Governor Scott Walker that crippled public sector unions' organizing rights.

Now, Schultz has announced he won't be seeking re-election, citing the rise of dark money in politics in the wake of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission ruling.

"The business of politics is changed, and I firmly believe that we are beginning in this country to look like a Russian-style oligarchy where a couple of dozen billionaires have basically bought the government," Sen. Schultz candidly said in a recent, spontaneous interview in his office. "And you know what? I always thought the job of a representative in government was to represent the people."

<snip>

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-gibson/carl-levin-citizens-united_b_4747203.html

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And...

Schultz isn't alone in his sentiments. U.S. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) recently said he would not seek re-election in 2014, simply because constantly fundraising for the next election got in the way of him doing his job. In his farewell address, John Kerry, the richest member of the U.S. Senate, urged his colleagues to address the "corrupting" influence of money in politics.

Same Link.

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Sander's Link: http://www.levin.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/sen-carl-levin-announces-he-will-not-seek-re-election-in-2014

A third item I want to tackle is a growing blight on our political system that I believe I can help address: the use of secret money to fund political campaigns. Our tax laws are supposed to prevent secret contributions to tax exempt organizations for political purposes. My Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations needs to look into the failure of the IRS to enforce our tax laws and stem the flood of hundreds of millions of secret dollars flowing into our elections, eroding public confidence in our democracy.

[Bjorn Against]

1. Schultz is the one Wisconsin Republican I actually respect

Obviously I don't always agree with the guy, but he is the only Republican in that legislature that actually wants to do the right thing for that state. The rest of the Wisconsin Republican Party is totally sold out to the Kochs, Schultz had enough integrity to see that what Walker was doing was wrong. I hope he writes a tell all book after he leaves politics because I bet he has a lot to say about the corruption in the Wisconsin GOP.

[WillyT]

5. Thank You For That !!!

[Scuba]

14. ...

[woo me with science]

2. To the Greatest Page.

The corruption is SYSTEMIC, and we must move beyond partisan thinking to fix it. We must be Americans, the 99 percent, and demand our representation back.

Thank you for this important post.

K&R

[WillyT]

3. You Are Quite Welcome !!!

[woo me with science]

28. Kick!

[indepat]

4. Yeah, now it's we, a few oligarchs, control the levers of power in government which is almost

as corrupt imo as the infamous Citizens/United decision.

[octoberlib]

6. K & a thousand recs!! nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Yup

Give you a kick

[WillyT]

8. I'm Trying To Hear The Gears Grinding...

"We can't go along with this... people won't feel the need to vote."

Yeah... huh ???

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Go to my blog

You will be not amused by the last 18 hours. Short on this, it's already happening. Even shorter, either one side in the charade are idiots, it's possible, or at some point there is some collusion here.

[WillyT]

10. Link ???

[sendero]

20. Click...

... on his( or her, heck I don't know!) user name!

Some nice stuff in there BTW.

[babylonsister]

11. Money will squeeze out the good, moral guys.

Makes me so sad.

[840high]

12. TY - k/r

[tclambert]

13. Politicians are supposed to represent only corporate people. The Supreme Court said so.

[postatomic]

15. Politicians have become commodities

Grassroots still works, but it's not possible to go up the political food chain without tons and tons of money.

[The Wizard]

16. Senators and Representatives

will be known by which lobby or corporation bought that seat. It will no longer be the Senator from a state, but rather a senator from GE or Exxon, or Bank of America. Would the Representative from NJ- Big Pharma be acceptable? With defense consuming half of our budget, half of the House and Senate would be represented by Members bought and paid for by the war machine. More Congressman and Senators than all the other special interests combined. Would anyone care to venture what will drive the political agenda? It will be more war until we're bankrupt from corruption. Roman Empire move over and make some space for the United States.

[sabrina 1]

17. This should be one of the biggest issues in the next election. Make Corporate Donations POISON for a

candidate. Signs listing donations, who they are from, emails, informing voters who is receiving the most Corporate funding should be prepared and next to the name of every candidate should be a list of their Corporate funders with the question 'Who will this candidate be working for'?

It should be the entire theme of the next election. Because Levin and Schultz are right. And until this issue is addressed we will continue to be frustrated by politicians who are supposedly working for us, voting AGAINST our interests.

I know that's what I'll be looking at, the MONEY rather than just listening to now familiar promises that are instantly forgotten as soon as they win.

Anyone receiving huge amounts of Corporate money should instantly be suspect.

[rhett o rick]

21. But what do you do when both candidates accept corporate money?

We need to draft candidates that pledge to shun corporate money AND NOT SUPPORT THOSE THAT DONT, even if they are the lesser of evils.

[sabrina 1]

25. Well, take NJ's Governor's election eg. Buono had hardly any money, while Christie was rolling in it

THAT should have alerted Democrats at least to what they could expect from him. Instead they abandoned the candidate who was not corporate owned in favor of the corporate owned REPUBLICAN. Not even a Democrat. If every Democrat who voted for the REPUBLICAN Corporate owned candidate in NJ had instead gone out and supported, endorsed and voted for the Democrat, she would have won. There are far more Dem voters in NJ than Republicans.

So why did that happen?? The Dem Party doesn't get behind progressive candidates IF they can find a corporate funded candidate, Dem or Repub it seems.

[rhett o rick]

30. What are we going to do about 2016? nm

[sabrina 1]

35. We can't do anything about the presidential election imo, until we take care of Congress.

IF we had an actual Congress that voted FOR the people, against anything coming from ANY WH that was not in the interests of the people, the Keystone pipeline, eg, or cuts to SS, it really wouldn't matter much what the WH wanted to do, they would always be faced with a Congress that was clearly on the side of the people, passing legislation to reverse all of Bush's policies, education, war, the Patriot Act, the NSA programs, all of the garbage that is destroying this country.

The WH would have to learn, especially if it was a Democrat, that they cannot twist the arms of members of Congress who are serving the people. Now they CAN, they can threaten not to allow funding for them etc.

But spending so much time on the presidential election is a waste of time at this point. We have TWO Congressional election cycles where we can work to support the Progressive candidates and thankfully there are several Progressive Organizations working to do that finally.

[rhett o rick]

18. I doubt that H. Clinton-Sachs will agree. She recently pocketed $400,000 from

Goldman-Sachs for having tea with them. Her and hubby's wealth has skyrocketed. Doubt if she will side with the 99%.

[Aerows]

22. Republicans will just run someone that is so

nuck-futting crazy that Democrats will feel obliged to vote for her. That's pretty much what we have been seeing lately in many elections. Crazy vs. corporate. We need to take back the primaries.

[rhett o rick]

32. Well put. People think they are free because they get to vote. They seem oblivious to the fact

that their choices are between crazy and corporate. They are tickled to death voting for corporate, rationalizing they were merely voting lesser of evils. Corporate manipulation.

[Puzzledtraveller]

26. We get paid in lip service

Whatever needs to be said to appease us, whatever issue they need to suddenly embrace that they were formerly opposed to in order to shut us up for a little bit. That's what we get and for too many of us it is enough. I can hear the thoughts in their heads when they imagine they are addressing us peons, it always begins with, "you should be happy........"

[rhett o rick]

27. They think they are liberal but look to a "big daddy" authoritarian leader to take care of them.

While liberals want the NSA to adhere to the Constitution and have oversight, the "faux liberals" accept that Father Clapper will take good care of us without any oversight. The word naive comes to mind.

[WillyT]

19. Morning Kick !!!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

23. Politicians make a good living being the middlemen for capitalists.

"History has tried to teach us that we can't have good government under politicians. Now, to go and stick one at the very head of government couldn't be wise." Mark Twain

[Puzzledtraveller]

24. This is true

[riderinthestorm]

29. I honestly don't see any politician eliminating big money in politics. Ever.

The financial rewards for these greedy SOBs are too lucrative. They'll never deliberately cut off access to the golden trough.

I don't have any answers to the problem. I fear we may be too far gone...

[xchrom]

31. du rec.

[Egalitarian Thug]

33. Economist, meteorologist, and politician are the only three professions I know of, where

one can be wrong over 90% of the time ans still keep your job.

[WillyT]

36. Ok... I'm Stealing That !!!

[Egalitarian Thug]

37. Please do, I'm sure I did. n/t

[colsohlibgal]

34. Sad Reality

At least as sad is all the people on both sides of the aisle that cannot or will not figure this out Right now it's game, set, and closing in on match. Obama is better than a republican but only around the edges. Mostly he's been just right of center - not good enough to change much at all. We need more parties, more choices, we need IRV, we need foolproof verifiable voting. We need a real MSM that actually asks hard questions rather than lobbing softballs.

We really started speeding up going downhill with the 2000 presidential election debacle/coup. The Supreme Court basically installed Bush. This was enabled by the unbelievable fact that in the deciding state the governor was Dubya's brother and the head election official was Dubya's campaign manager for the state. The most incredible thing of the whole coup was that more people weren't outraged. Beyond the recount being stopped there were all the mostly black people kicked off the coting rolls because they happened to have a name similar to a felon. With those votes, 80-90% of them democratic, Gore would have won the state hands down.

So many of us are so discouraged. Talking to a lady I play competitive doubles tennis with she agrees totally with me - if we were younger we'd think hard about moving to a country that isn't an oligarchy. People like me might leave this earth before it really gets bad, but I worry about my children and grandchildren.

[gulliver]

38. I love a Republican saying the government is bought.

They are the ones who try to buy the government. Then they turn around and try to gull liberals into anti-government cynicism based on, of all things, the government being bought.

[WillyT]

39. Supposedly Congress Spends 60 to 70 Percent Of Its Time Fundraising...

I'm sure BOTH sides are getting tired of it.